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Thursday, 21 February 2019

Drawing The Line

On Monday, it was revealed that Jeremy Corbyn was a bit too left-wing for some people. Hold the front page. But yesterday, it became the official line that Theresa May was as far to the right as Corbyn was to the left. Hold the front page, indeed.

Corbyn supports the nationalised railways that existed on every day of Margaret Thatcher's Premiership, and a top rate of tax lower than during much of that period, but with a far higher threshold even when adjusted for inflation.

If that is so far to the left as to be not at, but beyond, the bounds of acceptable opinion or debate, so that anything even further left again cannot be admitted to exist at all, then May's position is indeed so far to the right as to be not at, but beyond, the bounds of acceptable opinion or debate, so that anything even further right again cannot be admitted to exist at all.

The Times and The Guardian, the BBC and Sky News have spent four years telling us that Corbyn was indeed as left-wing as that. Therefore, May must be as right-wing as that. Yesterday, it officially became the line that she was.

Accordingly, just as Stephen Kinnock was the most left-wing MP of the four on last night's Newsnight, so the most right-wing was Damian Green, and even he had to balanced by Dominic Grieve. The Right had better get used to this. Welcome to our world.

But a realignment? If I had had a pound for every time that I had heard that one over the last 25 years, then I would have £37:46, and I would be glad of it. The two largest parties in the House of Commons, by far, are always going to be the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, with the Leader of one or the other as Prime Minister. That has nothing to do with ideology. That is just Britain. That is just the way that it is.

It is now impossible for either main party to win an overall majority on its own, but that has nothing to do with Brexit. Another hung Parliament is coming, therefore, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it.